9e2
9 evenings art, science & technology king street station, seattle october 21–29
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Photos (left to right): Group photo of 9 Evenings participants, printed in the 1966 event program. Deborah Hay/ Larry Heilos & Witt Wittnebert, Solo; Oyvind Fahlstrom/ Harold Hodges, Kisses Sweeter than Wine; Robert Rauschenberg/Jim McGee, Open Score.
Photos courtesy of E.A.T. & Julie Martin
about 9e2
9e2 is an art exhibition and performance series exploring the intersection of art, science, and technology. Installations, performances, and discussions will feature DJ Spooky, Ellen Ziegler, Gary Hill, Tamiko & Midori Thiel, Coleman Pester, Newton Harrison, and dozens of other artists and scientists examining topics and technologies like genetics, surveillance, social media, data visualization, biology, biochemistry, ecology, and virtual and augmented reality. 9e2 commemorates 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, an iconic exhibition 50 years ago in New York that sparked a new era of collaboration between artists, scientists, and engineers. 9 Evenings was organized in 1966 by Robert Rauschenberg and Billy KlĂźver, and featured artists creating performances in collaboration with engineers from Bell Labs. 50 years later, 9e2 embraces that same spirit of experimentation and collaboration with 9 evenings of new projects.
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a new era of innovation?
Foreword by John Boylan
The year 1966 saw the arrival of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering. 10 artists and performers, working with 30 Bell Labs scientists and engineers at the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan, produced a landmark festival of performance driven by the cutting-edge technologies of the time. That year, half a century ago, the world was on the cusp of a wave of technological innovation. Not invention, but innovation, as newly invented technologies and recent scientific discoveries were about to move out into the world. Many of the technologies that were to drive the cultural changes of the next decades had already been invented: transistors and integrated circuits, lasers, fiber optics, electronic computers, portable video tools, increasingly complex networks, communications satellites, and even the computer mouse. And a scientific groundwork had been laid for these technologies, from development of the ideas of quantum mechanics throughout the preceding decades to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953. The task over those next decades would be to innovate, to expand, refine, and rework these technologies and ideas and move them out into the worlds of business, commerce, academia, and the culture at large. Perhaps one of the more telling marks of this moment is that only a year before 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, Gordon Moore had promulgated what came to be known as “Moore’s Law,” accurately predicting a dramatic increase in computing power and reduction in computing cost over the coming decades. Moore’s Law can be seen as one key signal of the beginning of the digital revolution. One question for us now, 50 years later: are we in a similar position, are we full of new ideas and inventions that will explode through the next 50 years? And if so, are we ready for a surge of new
understanding of our brains and artificial intelligence, for a deeper awareness of the world’s climate, and for new developments in networking and communications, virtual reality, nanotech, robotics, and levels of miniaturization of hardware that would have seemed impossible a few decades ago? Some say that Moore’s Law is finally dying, and something will need to replace existing technologies: new materials, reprogrammable chips, quantum computing? Or is this moment simply business as usual, just another point in a continuum of change? On top of that, we have another core question: what is the role of art in any technological surge, and conversely, what parts do new technologies play in the creation of new art and culture? In 1959, C. P. Snow famously put forth the idea of “Two Cultures,” a deep separation between the cultures of science and art. In 1966 Snow’s separation was still very much around, with a very few exceptions. 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering and the successor project, Experiments in Art and Technology, brought exciting new collaborations between artists, engineers, and scientists. But there was still much to be done. Now, in 2016, that separation has changed significantly. We are seeing more and more engineers and scientists with backgrounds in the arts and cultural creation. And we are seeing more and more artists and performers who are comfortable with—and even embrace—the tools, ideas, and processes of science and technology. We can see them as cultural bridges, or maybe as hybrids. Such hybrids may still be too limited in number to influence the ways in which new ideas and technologies move into the world. But maybe not. Exploring and building bridges between art and science was at the core of 9 Evenings. 9e2 celebrates those bridges and builds on them – and in so doing, creates both new art and new technology. 5
installations ATLAS in silico
Ruth West from the xRez Art & Science Lab and collaborators Todd Margolis, Joachim Gossmann, Alex S. Horn, JP Lewis, Rajvikram Singh, Jurgen Schulze, Samuel B. Johnson, I-Chen Yeh, Iman Mostafavi, Ben Hackbarth, Weizhong Li, Trevor Henthorn, Javier I. Girardo, Andrew Prudhomme create an interactive, immersive virtual reality experience based on data from the world’s oceans. ATLAS in silico is an aesthetic encounter with the entire first release of the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS) metagenomics data set. Participants animate the virtual world by disrupting data flows, much like natural ocean currents, revealing internal patterns within the data and contextual metadata. Interacting with dynamic patterns of light and sound, visitors move between the molecular scale and the global and back again. ATLAS in silico is in part supported by: National Science Foundation, UCSD Calit2, CAMERA, Da-Lite Screen Corporation, VRCO / Mechdyne, UCSD CRCA, Ingenuity Festival, Meyer Sound, Mental Images, UCLA CENS, UCSD SDSC, UCSD NCMIR, University of North Texas, and the NAKFI Conference.
Brush the Sky
Artist and engineer Tamiko Thiel and her mother, noted calligrapher Midori Thiel, write a calligraphic narrative of four generations of their personal family history onto the sky. Tamiko incorporated Midori’s calligraphy into an augmented reality app that brings the ancient Asian tradition of enhancing landscape paintings with calligraphy into the 21st century. For each of the 19 geocoded locations, the artists chose a word or phrase to express the meaning of the site to them as a family and as Japanese Americans. The sites include Seattle icons whose Japanese American past has been forgotten, such as the Pike Place Market where before the Internment over 2/3 of the stands were run by Japanese Americans (including Midori’s father and grandfather). Midori’s calligraphy can also be seen in tangible form at 9e2, on multiple sheets of transparent mylar that deconstruct the characters into abstract art.
Brush the Sky was originally created for the Wing Luke Museum’s Construct\S exhibit of AsianAmerican women artists. Join Tamiko Thiel and artist Simon Kono for special Brush the Sky augmented reality tours of the International District at 12pm, 10.22 / 10.23 / 10.28.
The Door
Painter Lisa Buchanan, virtual reality artist Brandon Aleson, engineer and musician Chip Doring, and technologist Carrie Doring create an immersive, interactive audiovisual installation in which the viewer experiences shifting visions of what is behind a doorway. We all live different lives behind our closed doors. The face we show the outside world is rarely our true self, and the many forms of social media give us a universal platform to project how we want to be seen. The truth of our experiences is quite different and easily exposed.
Dreamscape: Azalea Walk, Central Park, NYC
California artist Daniel Ambrosi combines high-resolution photography with Google DeepDream imagery in a large-format landscape. Ambrosi’s initial experiments in computational photography were driven by a desire to create photo-based depictions of the world that better convey the feeling of a place and the way people really see it. Now, capitalizing on recent technological developments in deep learning and artificial intelligence, in collaboration with Joseph Smarr (Google) and Christopher Lamb (NVIDIA), Ambrosi has begun to imbue his giant landscape images with a stunning degree of wholly unexpected form and content that is only revealed upon close-up viewing. The resulting Dreamscapes reflect the notion that we are all actively participating in a shared waking dream. Our limited senses perceive a tiny fraction of the phenomena that comprise our world; no doubt, there is much more going on than meets the eye.
Facing page: Ruth West, Atlas in Silico
Flock the Optic
Abram Deslauriers, along with David King and Liesl Schubel, form a performance art collective known as Flock the Optic, working together since 2014. Tina Aufiero joins the group for 9e2. Artists and educators who give physical form to a mashup of ideas, Flock the Optic uses sensors, projections, and a kaleidoscope to contrast the migration of snow geese with American political and pop culture, and disrupt and distort the visual field of the viewer.
Lumia: Opus 147
A light box by Thomas Wilfred, the pioneering light artist who worked through much of the 20th century. Opus 147 is an example of Wilfred’s late period, where he took his designs and knowledge gleaned from decades of experiment and practice and created Recorded Lumia Compositions, physical lighting instruments where the work was recorded in mechanical objects for presentation in homes and museums. From the collection of A.J. Epstein.
New Geographies
Using platforms such as Tumblr, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, students in Johannesburg, Marseille, Dallas, and Seattle are working together on a project that seeds new ideas and methods for learning and creating across social media platforms. Produced by Janeil Engelstad and Make Art with Purpose.
The Observer Effect
A virtual reality installation by Reilly Donovan, Cory Metcalf, and David Stout that takes place within the physical space of a second projected video installation titled MELT. Viewers in this world within a world encounter an abstract landscape populated by fluid geometric forms that generate their own sounds. MELT depicts a world in flux, where pure formal abstraction exists as a state of continuous fluid upheaval, drawing the viewer-participant into an elemental vista of sculpted rifts, plunging
crevices, eroding plains, crags and caverns. The “observer effect” is when the act of observation changes the phenomenon being observed. In this work, the VR headset and trackers impact the properties of the simulation. The VR apparatus frees each observer to experience a unique sonic-visual-somatic experience, much like a visitor entering an extraterrestrial domain. Partial support for The Observer Effect provided by NVidia.
The Oregon Project
An installation by artist Keith Salmon, filmmaker Daniel Thornton, and Microsoft researcher Neel Joshi. Keith Salmon is a critically acclaimed Scottish Landscape painter with a significant visual impairment. Salmon draws inspiration from hiking through the Scottish landscape, capturing in his memory qualities of light, shape and color. The resulting paintings are fantastically atmospheric abstractions that defy traditional definitions of landscape painting. Recently, Salmon began exploring sound as another medium where he can work, building a catalogue of audio files on his travels around Scotland. In 2014/15 Microsoft Research Intern and UW PhD Candidate Kyle Rector built a prototype device with Microsoft engineers that allows audiences to “hear” a painting. Salmon, Thornton and Joshi are using this device as a new creative platform. At the Josephy Center in Joseph, Oregon this summer, Salmon and Thornton collected material for Salmon’s first American landscape exploration, forming the basis of the work at 9e2. Sat. 10.22, 6pm: Keith Salmon will give an artist talk at 7 pm on the evolution of his art practice, The Oregon Project, and how art and technology can enhance accessibility for people with visual impairments. Salmon, Thornton and Joshi will give guided tours of the installation from 6-7 pm.
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Left to right: Susan Zoccola, Dark Matter. Nylon, paint, stainless steel, 2016. Dark Matter Simulation, Ralf Kachler, 2016.
The Origins of Biometric Data
An installation by artist Geraldine Ondrizek, The Origins of Biometric Data is based on research from the Kaiser Whilhelm Institute of Dr. Georg Geipel’s hand and fingerprint studies. Geipel, an anthropologist and statistician at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute from 1930 through 1960, created a numeric system to measure the lines and curves in hand and fingerprints. Through these measurements Geipel identified inherited hand line similarities in family groupings and identical twins. Although his ability to identify genetic inheritance was significant, Geipel’s conclusions around racial difference and mental ability had grave consequences on society during WWII. Geipel’s system is now part of a system of biometric data collection that begins at birth and is the standard measure of identity. Ondrizek states “I aim to honor those who offered their identity markers for science. It is highly unlikely that these subjects would have known how their personal mark would have been used to establish the system we use now.”
Poetic Hybrids
In Poetic Hybrids, Seattle artists Grant Kirkpatrick, Ray Freeman, and Hyatt Johnson create holographic sculptures from audience-created drawings. The audience then “paints” the holograms. Created by artist Ginny Ruffner and originally inspired by interviews with genetic research scientists, Poetic Hybrids incorporates real-time human creation with augmented reality to illustrate improbable hybrids with holograms. Activated for the opening & closing night parties only (10.21 & 10.29).
Sculptures of Protein Molecules
Biophysicist and sculptor Mike Tyka’s metal and glass sculptures explore the structures of protein molecules and DNA. The work combines traditional hand-sculpting and lost-wax casting techniques with modern computer graphics and 3D printing. The pieces are based on exact atomic coordinates calculated using X-ray crystallography. In this work, Tyka hopes to capture the hidden beauty of biomolecules, make biochemistry accessible to the general public, and act as inspiration for those who want to learn more about these fascinating molecules that make life possible.
The Skies Epitomized
The Skies Epitomized by light artist Maja Petrić, explores the essence of the sky from the perspective of humans gazing at it. We have one sky, but the experiences are infinite. People have been turning their eyes towards the sky for meaning and guidance since prehistoric times. For 9e2, Petrić investigates what one might see when gazing at the sky in peaceful parts of the world, versus in the areas in the world where there is intense conflict. A machine learning algorithm by Microsoft researcher Nebojša Jojić was used to create epitomes of 5 skies: New Zealand, Iraq, Iceland, Syria, and one Universal sky. To build the epitome of a Syrian sky, for instance, they set the software to look at results for searches including “syria+sky+skies.” The software sucked in bits and pieces of these images, using them as brushes to paint the epitome of what everyone saw when they considered the Syrian sky.
SoN01R
Conceptual artist Frederik DeWilde created an artistic data visualization and sonification of the quantum vacuum, the lowest energy state of the invisible universe. SoN01R was developed in collaboration with Frederik Vanhoutte, and originally based on a real-time data feed from the Australian National University Department of Quantum Science. By tapping into a physical quantum source, they were able to generate true random numbers in real time, driving the work. Perhaps the most important effect of quantum theory on the arts in general is as a kind of reminder and challenge. The world is not a Turing machine, a perfect logical computation machine. Our apparently solid and predictable world is based on an underlying reality that does not operate by deterministic one-way cause and effect, but by a strange sort of harmonic correspondence among indeterminate entities, whose very being is only a probability.
Tamiko Thiel Midori Thiel, Brush the Sky. Augmented reality, digital prints & Japanese calligraphy, mylar hangings, 2015.
TAF Academy
Students from the TAF Academy, led by artist and robotics engineering teacher Gabriel-Bello Diaz, will present work created specially for 9e2 in their fabrication lab.
Vanity Monitor
A.J. Epstein’s Vanity Monitor was the result of his growing obsession, after many thefts, with security cameras. Epstein says, “Since 2011, I have been constantly upgrading and adding cameras to view these spaces day and night. I have gradually come to the realization that part of my fixation is pride and adoration, and when showing this system to friends, vanity. I am able to look in on my achievements at any time of day, from almost anywhere on earth. In a sense, in compulsive examination of my edifice, I am looking at myself, but from an oblique and often dark and grainy angle.� The Vanity Monitor exposes the irony of security, protection, and obsessive self-examination. Although it gives the viewer the ability to look at oneself from many oblique angles, no matter where you look, you cannot get a good look at yourself.
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Featuring Nola Avienne, Gala Bent, Jazz Brown, Romson Bustillo, Sue Danielson, Bradly Gunn, Timea Tihanyi, Ellen Ziegler, & Susan Zoccola. Curated by Ellen Ziegler In the act of perceiving our surroundings, we forge a link between our inner and outer worlds. Artists work in this interface – between the physiology of perception and the exterior world we engage with. “Synaptic lexicon” refers to a compendium (lexicon) of ideas and insights, resulting in this artistic investigation showing at 9e2. It offers nine visual artists’ insights into and collaborations with newly emerging scientific principles – in neuroscience, cultural biology, dark matter astrophysics, and mathematics. The group has met every three weeks since the spring of 2016. Dark matter researcher James Sloan, neuroscientists Thomas Deuel and Siddharth Ramakrishnan, Developmental Biologist Jason Berndt, and mathematicians Ken Brakke, Jadayev Athrea, and Henry Segerman contributed input to the group. Individual artists also connected with other scientists. Thanks to British neuroscientist Moheb Costandi, author of 50 Human Brain Ideas You Really Need to Know; we used this as our textbook when we began our work. Emily Zimmerman, Associate Curator of Programs at the Henry Art Gallery and a member of the 9e2 team served in an invaluable advisory role. Thank you. Ellen Ziegler, Synaptic Lexicon Curator
Gala Bent, Drawings in contemplation of dark matter: Drummed Drawings (Particle Physics), detail
Nola Avienne: Hippocampus / Hypocampus
Avienne’s kinetic sculpture addresses the function of the hippocampus and how it relates to memory. A healthy hippocampus retains past and forms new memory. But if damaged through brain trauma – physical injury, PTSD or the onset of Alzheimer’s – the hippocampus is challenged to recall or create new memory. In the healthy hippocampus model, quick jumps of pigmented ‘synapses’ embed iron filings into the paper in a pattern of interaction and repetition. In the damaged hippocampus model, the signal and connection are weak, activity is present, but little is being embedded or retained.
and the biochemistry of the brain. Bustillo notes, “We are considering how disruptions of signal transduction and knowledge transfer affect the contributions and flow of information emanating from one group of people of color (Filipino American) to another (African American) and vice versa. Micro and macro disruptions affecting translations and contributions are explored through visual cues and movement.” Bustillo worked with Jason Berndt, PhD, a Research Specialist at Howard Hughes Medical Institute who researches developmental biology, cell biology, and cancer. Performance: Wednesday, 10.26 with dancer David Rue.
Gala Bent: Drawings in contemplation of dark matter
Bent’s installation honors the work of unheralded scientists. “I began reading The 4% Universe by Richard Panek while on an artist residency in the Czech Republic. It inspired a prose poem written to Vera Rubin (whose research on galaxy rotation was crucial to early dark matter theorizing), a series of small paintings about the slow looking and waiting of astronomers, and four larger drawings about particle movement, patience and methodical marking.” Bent worked with James V. Sloan of the Astrophysics Lab at UW. Bent requested that physicist Sloan – also a musician and sound engineer– record the sounds of his dark matter experiments and mix them with sounds made by her drawing process.
Jazz Brown: non-attachment to absence
Brown envisages the unknowns of dark matter as a reflection of the mysterious nature of Being. “non-attachment to absence links consciousness (which I feel is the womb of all matter) and dark matter as reflections of the same no-thing.”
Romson Regarde Bustillo: The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling
Bustillo’s performance and installation piece The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling responds to evolving information on culture and biology, especially how culture influences perception
Romson Regarde Bustillo, The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling, Serigraph on Muslin, 2016
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Sue Danielson: Memory Blast (what I thought I knew at the start)
Danielson’s project explores the reconstructive nature of memory. “This was originally spurred by my step-father’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and how difficult it was to watch him experience the loss of his connection to himself and others,” Danielson says. “After his death, I sustained a concussion as the result of a car accident and experienced some memory loss, along with visual distortions. The experience altered and deepened my artistic exploration into visually mapping memory and experience.”
Through conversations with neurologists Thomas Deuel and Siddharth Ramakrishnan, Danielson incorporated the latest neuroscience findings into visual form. The result is a process-based, abstract mixed-media painting that mimics the overlaying, tangling and interconnected workings of memory. Courtesy of Bridge Productions
Bradly Gunn: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World)
Using the Allen Brain Atlas, an amalgamation of 21st century neurological research, as a guide, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum is an architectural abstraction of the human brain in the same way our worlds first atlas mapped the earth. Primary neurological pathways, process oriented regions of activity, structural dependencies and genetic expression can be identified, but our understanding of the brain still lies dormant beneath layers of subtleties. This installation expresses the challenges, mystery, and complexity of mapping the human brain.
Timea Tihanyi: Perfect Imperfect
Tihanyi’s project is about how we know and learn things and bodily-experiential and abstract-rational forms of knowledge. She regularly collaborates with several mathematicians, among them Ken Brakke at Susquehanna University, Jadayev Athrea at UW, and Henry Segerman at Oklahoma State University. This dialogue has produced ideas about ways
Jazz Brown, non-attachment to absence. Acrylic on canvas, 2016.
the mind conceptualizes information, visualizes abstract forms (like those in higher dimensions), seeks patterns and breaks rules, and finds beauty and pleasure in the act. Using mathematical and 3D software to design specific geometries, Tihanyi prototyped the forms using 3D printers and CNC. She then re-made the forms in ceramic materials. The ceramic process is the opposite of the mathematical process, as it is grounded in our threedimensional reality of time, gravity, and material.
Ellen Ziegler: It Takes One to Know One
Brain cells called mirror neurons respond equally whether we are performing an action, or witnessing someone else perform the same action. They are the reason for the “chameleon effect” that causes babies to stick out their tongues when you do, as well as for social emotions like grief, guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, and disgust. More controversially, mirror neurons are claimed to be the neural basis of our capacity for empathy. Is there a physiological organ or structure connected to
empathy? Although the answer is not yet definitive, both scientists and non-scientists are drawn to the possibility. It Takes One to Know One invites the viewer to reflect on the question.
Susan Zoccola: Dark Matter
Inspired by current dark matter research in discussion with James Sloan, Zoccola has created a sculpture that explores the liminal and elusive limits of materiality and immateriality—the threshold of what’s there and what’s not, and what might be just beyond. Her sculptural installation for 9e2 reflects mathematical simulations by researchers who see dark matter as possibly acting like a scaffolding upon which regular particles could arrange themselves — a cosmic web. She is interested in an accounting of the visible world, as well as that of the invisible world—at the threshold of a radical imperceptibility that contemporary cosmology presents.
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performances, talks & events 28 problems / preview 10.21 10.26 – 10.29 See Offsite Events
The premiere of choreographer Dayna Hanson’s 28 problems is performed in collaboration with celebrated New York-based experimental theater actor Jim Fletcher; also featuring Madison Haines and Julia Sloane. 28 problems transcodes the language of mathematics into the language of dance. Hanson notes that “In 28 problems, I’ve given myself a hopeless task—translate something I don’t understand at all into a dance that makes powerful sense.” Inspired by a set of calculus problems found on a discarded piece of scratch paper, Hanson created a vocabulary of dance “symbols” and movement phrases that corresponded as closely as possible to the equations. 28 problems expresses Hanson’s interest in divides between people (those who understand math and those who don’t; those whose religious beliefs and cultures differ) and also in gestures aimed at narrowing those divides. 28 problems is made possible with support from 4Culture, 9e2, Abrons Arts Center, Base, Bossak Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Office of Arts & Culture, John C. Robinson, Carlo & Lalie Scandiuzzi, University of Washington Dance Program, Case Van Rij, and Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
9 Evenings Revisited: Experiments in Art, Theatre and Engineering / 10.24
Media arts historian Robin Oppenheimer, with Cornish College of the Arts educators Genevieve Tremblay, Robert Campbell, Brendan Hogan, and Communications Media Specialist Mark Bocek, leads a multimedia discussion of Cornish’s historical ties to 9 Evenings, and how that drove the development of an interdisciplinary course at Cornish in 2016. Interspersed with stories, history, and film footage, this unique presentation reflects on pedagogy, art, and interdisciplinary learning.
The collaborations that took place in 1966 at 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering have deep roots at Cornish College of the Arts. In spring of 2016, Oppenheimer, Campbell and Hogan taught a course based on 9 Evenings as part of the launch of the new interdisciplinary program at Cornish, the Creative Corridor (led by Tremblay). In researching 9 Evenings history, students used technology to explore interactivity, performance, sound, sculpture, video and dance, re-envisioning five of the 1966 performances for a 2016 presentation.
Art, Digital Divides & Digital Integrations /10.23
Join artist and tech entrepreneur Susie Lee, digital inclusion advocate Sabrina Roach, along with 9e2 founder and creative director John Boylan and other guests in a conversation about technology access. What are the social justice implications of the intersection between art, tech, and science, and how can art and technology each improve access to the other? How can we develop the democratic of potential art, technology and science in ways that more broadly serves human needs?
Beyond the Metaphors – Butoh x DeepDream / 10.23 & 10.25
Butoh dancer Kaoru Okumura, with Google Deep Dream researchers Mike Tyka, Kenric McDowell, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, and Steadicam operator Robin Buerki, combine the intensity of Butoh with the strange, wonderful nature of the DeepDream algorithm. After conducting several experiments, Okumura and Tyka chose flora and fauna themes as the entry point for artistic dialogue — reminiscent perhaps of ancient evolutionary remnants in our human selves. DeepDream and Butoh are both human reactions to changing technological circumstances. But they sit in uneasy harmony, with the minimalist, organic, and very human dance form finding an odd partner in the nonlinear hallucinations of machines. In this collaboration the two media
reflect the challenge of balancing our animal selves with the technology rising around us, and suggest that human responses to technology must be creative, adaptive, and sometimes shockingly novel.
The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling / 10.26
Romson Regarde Bustillo and dancer David Rue present a performance in response to recent science in culture and biology (in particular how cultural values, practices and beliefs shape and are shaped by the mind, brain and genes), as well as the concept of signal transduction. Signal transduction (also known as cell signaling) is the transmission of molecular signals from a cell’s exterior to its interior. Signals must be transmitted by cell-surface receptors into the cell to ensure an appropriate response to a stimulus. Part of the Synaptic Lexicon projects curated by Ellen Ziegler.
Data Stethoscope for the Brain Connectome / 10.28
Astrophysicist Roger Malina, neuroscientist Gagan Wig, and artists and composers Scot Gresham Lancaster, Tim Perkis, and Andrew Blanton create a sound piece using specially designed electroacoustic instruments and an interactive 3D video-gaming tool. This performance is based on a “data stethoscope” approach to converting data into sound, in order to “listen” to the complex networks derived from fMRI scans. The stethoscope in this case will not be used by neuroscientists, but rather by the performers. The performance takes its inspiration from Reunion (1968), a piece proposed by John Cage with a special chess board designed and built by Lowell Cross. The performance uses an electronic chessboard as a way of signaling performance moments. Each move represents a musical piece that will be credited and worked out separately by the performers, each chess move an opportunity to perform a new solo, duo or trio composed by one of the performers.
Thomas Deuel, The Encephalophone Ensemble, 2016.
The Encephalophone Ensemble / 10.22 & 10.24 Neuroscientist and musician Thomas Deuel, working with composer Marcin Pączkowski, visualist Ben Van Citters, and accompanied by an ensemble of musicians, will produce music and projected visuals in real time directly from his brain waves using his Encephalophone, a brain to music interface.
Eri, After Dark / 10.21 & 10.22
Mary Sherman’s unique, performative gift was inspired by and made for Benoit Granier’s musical composition Eri. The piece was originally constructed to be easily transported to China, where it first ‘performed’ as part of a live, electro-acoustic concert at the Beijing Conservatory in February 2012. Brought on stage, like a present tied with a bow, Eri, After Dark is then unwrapped. Eri, an interlude from Granier’s opera Eri, After Dark, is based on the Haruki Murakami novel of the same title. The opera follows the life of Murakami’s fictional sisters Mari and Eri in Tokyo, where Eri is lost between two worlds—the real one she is trying to escape and the fantasy one, where she is imprisoned within a television, waiting for her sister to retrieve her. Mary Sherman’s performance is in part supported by the Boston College Department of Art History, Studio Art and Film.
From 9 Evenings to 9e2 / 10.22 & 10.25
Robin Oppenheimer, a media arts historian, presents films about 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering in 1966, as well as the Experiments in Art and Technology that followed. Julie Martin, who worked on the original 9 Evenings, and is director of Experiments in Art and Technology, joins us via video from New York for the 3pm screening on Sat 10.22.
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Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) will perform The Hidden Code at Benaroya Hall, on Thu 10.27. Photo by Steven Schreiber
Gene Splicing / 10.29
Artist John Roach collaborated with percussionists John Lane and Stuart McLeod, glass artists Morgan Peterson and James Anderegg, scientist Jared Roach, and artist and data wrangler Ranjit Bhatnagar to create a smashing, unforgettable finale for 9e2. The DNA data of the two percussionists was used to develop a series of glass objects, as well as the instructions to play them. The work hacks the double helix and riffs off of the idea of genetic mutation, drawing connections to the creative process—equal parts creation, translation, transformation and destruction. Special thanks to Pilchuck Glass School for their support in the creation of the glass objects for Gene Splicing.
Hemispheres (2016) / 10.28 & 10.29
Juan Pampin, neuroscientists Eberhard Fetz and Thomas Deuel, and other UW DXArts faculty use 3D sound technology to produce an immersive sound hemisphere sculpted by brain activity. A dome of speakers creates an immersive hemisphere of sound, which is then used as a mapping surface for live EEG data coming from the brain of a performer. The hemispherical distribution of the speakers will mirror the one of the EEG electrodes placed over the performer’s brain and the live EEG data will be used to generate sound projected from different areas of the space. In this way, the audience will experience the modulation of the acoustics of King Street Station through the brain of the performer, whose auditory system will be stimulated with sounds coming from the site itself, creating a sensory feedback loop.
The Hidden Code / 10.27 See Offsite Events
A rare performance of Paul Miller’s (aka DJ Spooky) lush multimedia presentation inspired by astronomy, engineering, biology, and psychology. Miller composed the music for The Hidden Code based on conversations with several of Dartmouth’s finest physicists, astronomers, engineers, biologists, brain scientists and computer scientists — including theoretical physicist and saxophone player Stephon Alexander, who is featured in this performance. The Hidden Code visuals were created by the staff of the Charles Hayden Planetarium, Museum of Science, Boston. Born of conversations between artists and scientists, the work highlights the enabling power of computational science in the arts. The Hidden Code rests between a meditation on how artists and scientists convert ideas into action, and how composers translate the intangibility of music into a group of observations. Produced in Partnership with Benaroya Hall and Sozo Artists, Inc.
Machine to Be Another / 10.23
See Daytime Events
In partnership with TWIST360º, enjoy a mimosa brunch and watch Seattle (and 9e2) artists conduct Machine To Be Another experiments in virtual reality. Queer culture has always pushed toward a fluidity of gender, sexuality and spirit that can’t be captured in a single frame. Whether you’re cis, trans, or non-binary, rigid definitions of gender diminish the nuances of our lived experiences. What happens when you combine virtual reality with a desire to disrupt, expand and redefine traditional notions of gender? The MBTA experiment explores
that question, using a “body swap” experiment where participants virtually embody “the other.” Can VR help to dissolve the gender binary, and create a newfound empathy for and understanding of differences? And how will this exploration expand to observations about sexuality, mobility, the size of our bodies, and the color of our skin?
on human bodies operating within a quagmire of technological systems essential to modern society (i.e. surveillance, the internet, architectural design).
Perception, Action & Creativity in the Musical Brain / 10.29
The Time of the Force Majeure / 10.28
See Daytime Events
Psyche Loui, a musician and prominent neuroscience researcher at Wesleyan University, talks about the many fascinating links between music and the brain. Mathematicians and scientists have gravitated towards music for years, as evidenced by the numerous projects at 9e2 addressing music, sound, and neuroscience. Why do people vary in their musical ability? Why do humans love music? How does the brain learn new music? What makes the human brain creative? Loui will discuss these topics and more, with insights from her lab and current research.
The Politics and Mechanics of Archiving-Moving Parts, the Cloud, Magnetic Fields, and Stone / 10.29 See Daytime Events
Johannes Goebel, Director of the Experimental Media and Performing Art Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will speak about “documents, the volatility of bits, and a system to preserve them.”
Creation of the sound design for PYLON II was supported through an Artist Support Program Residency at Jack Straw Cultural Center.
Eco-art pioneer Newton Harrison and artist and curator Janeil Engelstad in a special happy hour conversation, starting at 5 pm. Harrison (who works collaboratively with Helen Mayer Harrison) has worked in support of ecosystems and community development for decades. Harrison and Engelstad will talk about their current work and how it relates to The Force Majeure - the pressure that global warming and industrial processes places on all of our planetary systems. The Harrisons are currently working on a massive, 100+ year international project to preserve the water, habitat and species of the Tibetan Plateau, the largest source of ground water in the world. Engelstad is currently producing an international project that addresses the intersection of climate change, technology and human rights.
Unconditional Surrender / 10.23
Gary Hill will present: “Somewhere between annihilation and light that exacts its revenge, the scream of what can only be described as now rolls over and over that fleshy presence…”
PYLON II / 10.21 & 26
The premiere of PYLON II, choreographed by Coleman Pester // TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY, with collaborators Ari Chivukula (programmer), Monika Khot (sound design), and Alex Boeschenstein (video projection/visuals). PYLON II incorporates live surveillance feeds to explore questions of observation and consent. Audiences for PYLON II will enter into an immersive environment featuring a cast of five dancers engaged in highly physical choreographed movement, a live sound score, and a complex surveillance system which is simultaneously recording and projecting visual information coming from cameras throughout the space. Through a developmental arch, the work explores themes of systematic fear and control placed
Coleman Pester and //TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY, PYLON II. Photo by Sarah Kavage.
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calendar tickets & location Venue notes Open exhibit hours 12 – 6pm daily, Sat 10.22 – Sat 10.29 Exhibit admission and daytime events $10, no presale, pay at the door. Re-admission to the exhibit is free with paid admission to any evening. Times listed are door times; evening performances will start about 1 hour after doors open. Accessibility at King Street Station We are committed to welcoming everyone to 9e2! King Street Station is wheelchair accessible; take the elevator up to the third floor during open hours. If you require other accommodations to access the exhibit or performances, please contact us at contact9e2seattle@gmail.com in advance of your visit.
Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher, 28 problems. Photo Jacob Rosen
Tickets
Tickets available at the door or online at www.9e2seattle.org/calendar-tickets
Contact
www.9e2seattle.org
emailcontact9e2Seattle@gmail.com www.facebook.com/9e2seattle #9e2seattle @9e2seattle
offsite events*
*offsite events are indicated with an asterisk in calendar listings
Machine to Be Another
DJ Spooky: The Hidden Code
The Erickson Theater, 1524 Harvard Ave. Seattle, WA 98122
Benaroya Hall, Nordstrom Recital Hall: 200 University Street, Seattle WA 98101
Free with purchase of 9e2 / Sunday ticket.
$30 / $35
Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher, Madison Haines & Julia Sloane: 28 problems
Johannes Goebel The Politics and Mechanics of Archiving-Moving Parts, the Cloud, Magnetic Fields, and Stone
Sun 10.23, 11–12:30pm
Wed 10.26, 8pm Thu 10.27, 10pm Fri 10.28, 8pm Sat 10.29, 4pm At BASE in Georgetown: 6520 5th Ave S #122 Seattle, WA 98108 $20
Thu 10.27, 7:30pm (doors at 7)
Sat 10.29, 1pm
Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105 Free with reserved ticket
fri 10.21
7pm / 21+ only
$45 (includes drink ticket) Join us for a stunning kickoff to 9e2 and celebrate the artists that are filling King Street Station with over 20,000 square feet of installations, immersion rooms, painting, sculpture, and performance. The first evening’s performances start around 8 pm, and explore human and machine motion and the human interface with the technical and scientific: Mary Sherman: Eri After Dark A preview of Dayna Hanson’s 28 problems Coleman Pester and //TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY: PYLON II Ginny Ruffner & Grant Kirkpatrick: Poetic Hybrids
sat 10.22
12pm Tamiko & Midori Theil, Brush the Sky Augmented reality tour of the International District, led by artist Tamiko Thiel.
1pm
Psyche Loui talk, Perception, Action, and Creativity in the Musical Brain
3pm
Robin Oppenheimer & Julie Martin, From 9 Evenings to 9e2 film screenings
evening events 6pm / all ages / $10
Keith Salmon artist talk: Reflections on the Oregon Project Salmon and collaborators Dan Thornton and Neel Joshi will give guided tours of the installation from 6-7 pm. Talk begins at 7. Mary Sherman: Eri After Dark Thomas Deuel: The Encephalophone Ensemble
sun 10.23
11am- Machine to Be Another with TWIST360º 2:30pm At the Erickson Theater, 1524 Harvard Ave.
Seattle, WA 98122 Free with purchase of 9e2 pass or Sunday ticket.
12pm Tamiko & Midori Theil, Brush the Sky
Augmented reality tour of the International District, led by artist Tamiko Thiel.
4pm Art, Digital Divides, & Digital Integrations conversation with Susie Lee, Sabrina Roach, John Boylan and other guests.
evening events 7pm / all ages / $10
Kaoru Okumura: Beyond the Metaphors – Butoh x DeepDream Gary Hill: Unconditional Surrender
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Below: Coleman Pester and //TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY, PYLON II. Photo by Truthgun.
mon 10.24
7pm / all ages / $10 9 Evenings Revisited
Thomas Deuel: The Encephalophone Ensemble
tue 10.25
7pm / all ages / $10
Kaoru Okumura: Beyond the Metaphors - Butoh x DeepDream Robin Oppenheimer: From 9 Evenings to 9e2
Below: Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher: 28 problems. Photo by Sarah Kavage.
wed 10.26
7pm / all ages / $10
Romson Regarde Bustillo and David Rue: The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling Coleman Pester and //TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY: PYLON II
8pm Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher: 28 problems*
thu 10.27
There are no events at King Street Station on Thu 10.27. See offsite events section for more information about events on this evening. 7:30pm DJ Spooky: The Hidden Code* 10pm Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher: 28 problems*
fri 10.28
5–7pm Newton Harrison and Janeil Engelstad – The Time of the Force Majeure happy hour conversation
6-8pm Exhibition open hours
8pm evening events / all ages / $10 DXArts: Hemispheres (2016) Gresham Lancaster, Tim Perkis, Andrew Blanton, Gagan Wig, Roger Malina: Data Stethoscope for the Brain Connectome
8pm Dayna Hanson, 28 problems*
Base Studios, 6520 5th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108 $20
sat 10.29
12pm Tamiko & Midori Theil, Brush the Sky
Augmented reality tour of the International District, led by artist Tamiko Thiel
1 - 2:30pm Johannes Goebel, The Politics and Mechanics of Archiving – Moving Parts, the Cloud, Magnetic Fields, and Stone* Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105 Free with reserved ticket.
4pm Dayna Hanson, 28 problems*
Base Studios, 6520 5th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108 $20
closing night costume gala 7pm / 21+ only / $45 DXArts: Hemispheres (2016)
John Roach and company: Gene Splicing
Ginny Ruffner & Grant Kirkpatrick: Poetic Hybrids Sue Danielson, Memory Blast (what I thought I knew at the start). Mixed media, 2016. Courtesy of Bridge Productions
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9e2
9e2 organizational team John Boylan, Founder & Creative Director Sarah Kavage, Managing Director Oliver Little, Production Manager Elizabeth Brown Michael Cohen Pierre Crutchfield Thomas Deuel Janeil Engelstad Julia Fryett
9e2 advisors
Janet Galore Yonnas Getahun Dave Jimison Neel Joshi Barbara Mitchell Robin Oppenheimer Chris Porter Dan Thornton Genevieve Tremblay Emily Zimmerman
Morehshin Allahyari Blaise AgĂźera y Arcas
Tonya Lockyer Roger Malina
Johannes Goebel Newton & Helen Mayer Harrisons Margaret Livingston
Julie Martin W. Patrick McCray Steven Potter David Salesin
special thanks to:
Lola Peters, Randy Engstrom, Joselynn Tokashiki Engstrom, Greg Lundgren, Matthew Richter, Bill DeBord, Doug King, Carey Christie, Anne Folke, Elise Ballard, Donte Felder, Jason Salavon, Asta Roseway, Gretchen Burger and Sandy Cioffi and all of the volunteers and supporters who made 9e2 possible. Front cover images (left to right): Oyvind Fahlstrom/ Harold Hodges, Kisses Sweeter than Wine, 1966. Dayna Hanson with Jim Fletcher, 28 problems. Photo by Sarah Kavage. Jazz
Brown, non-attachment to absence (detail). Acrylic on canvas, 2016.
Back cover images (left to right): Timea Tihanyi / Henry Segerman, 5cells. Bone china, foam porcelain, 2016. Alex Hay / Herb Schneider & Bob Kieronski, Grass Field, 1966. Romson Regarde Bustillo, The Biology of Culture: Cue Signaling. Serigraph on Muslin, 2016. All 9 Evenings photos courtesy of E.A.T. & Julie Martin. Program design by Jill Hannay
9e2 is sponsored by FOUNDING SPONSORS
SUPPORTING SPONSORS
FRIEND SPONSORS
MEDIA SPONSORS
TRAVEL SPONSOR
OTHER SUPPORT FOR 9e2 PROVIDED BY 4Culture Bellevue Arts Museum Benaroya Hall Boston College Cafe Nordo Cornish College of the Arts Harvard Club of Seattle Henry Art Gallery International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 15
Institute for Systems Biology
The University of North Texas
Julie Martin
TAF Academy
Make Art with Purpose
TWIST360º
MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest
University of Washington’s DXArts
Parsons School of Design
Velocity Dance Center
Pilchuck Glass School
Vital 5 Productions
Seattle Office of Arts & Culture